Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Do Something - GSAs and the IJB

The Intrepid Junior Blogger fixed me with those eyes and in
them I saw the little girl she once was, the one who believed her mother could
fix any problem and soothe any hurt. This time, though, I was not as certain
what to do, as the problem was complex and far beyond my reach alone to address.
But there was no way I could ignore my daughter’s plea to do something, and so
we entered into an adventure that, in some ways, ended yesterday.

At the beginning of this year the IJB came home from school
and announced she would focus on her studies, intent to secure stellar marks in
all her classes to pursue the education overseas she has dreamt about for
years. She would forego her usual pursuits – drama and the like – to focus on
that, and hence my surprise when days later she came home to announce she was
helping to found a new group in her school: a GSA.

I should be clear here: I had no idea what a GSA was. I
asked her to explain and it spilled out of her, the concept of a Gay-Straight
Alliance dedicated to developing a strong group in her school to ensure that
all students, no matter their sexual orientation, felt safe. When I reminded
her of her commitment to her school work she looked me in the eye and said: “This
one matters, mom”, and I knew this was close to her heart for whatever reason
and that she would not be deterred or dissuaded.

It was not long after that when the topic of GSAs blew up in
our province, when the provincial politicians began an extended battle over the
right of students to form these groups under the name of their choice and in
any school district. We watched the battle unfolding with dismay, and it was
one evening after school that she said: “do something”. When I asked her what
she wanted me to do she asked me to do something she had never asked me to do
before: she asked me to write about it.

And so I did. I wrote an open letter to Premier Prentice,
using a photo from the evening he met the IJB and I told him that he was losing
her, not just her future vote perhaps but her faith and trust in our
government, our leadership and our province. I helped her to write and edit a
letter to the MLA for whom she had campaigned, spending her precious time three
years ago to ensure his election. I spoke to journalists and radio hosts,
sharing her and my thoughts as best I could, under her direction and with her
consultation.

It was a journey for me, and along the way I learned why
GSAs, under the name students had chosen and with the support of their schools,
were so important. From those who suggested such groups were primarily for
parents (never mind that most parents like me didn’t even know what a GSA was
and that in this case it was very much the kids leading the adults) to those
who suggested “diversity clubs” were enough (not nearly enough and not
recognizing the students in the way they wished to recognized) I came to
realize that many of the adults in this province were woefully misinformed or
misled on the subject, not understanding how and why GSAs mattered – and saved
lives.

But I knew from the emails I got telling me how a school GSA
might have changed the experience of those who wrote to me, individuals who
endured tremendous challenges during their school years because they were gay
and how a GSA would have been their safe place. I knew from the hate-filled emails
from those who were so terrified of the very concept of being gay that they
could not even type the word out in full, like it would infect them should they
tap out the letters on their keyboard. I knew because of the friends who sought
me out to tell their personal stories, of themselves and their friends and
family members, stories that made me cry when they shared them.

And I knew from the number of journalists, strangers and
even friends who asked if my child was gay, like the label mattered and like it
was necessary for them or me to place a label on her and other kids in order to
understand the issue or its importance. It showed so clearly how we didn’t get
it, how we were failing our kids and how we viewed it so differently from my
child and her friends who never even think to ask such a question. I learned
how much GSAs mattered.

We were texting back and forth furiously when Bill 10 was
put on pause pending consultation with the public and particularly youth like
her. And yesterday, when the amendments for Bill 10 were read, indicating a
commitment to ensuring all students, regardless of school board, could form a
GSA on school property with the name of their choice, I texted her to tell her.

It might seem strange to say I cried when the amendments
were read, and cheered when those who truly pushed for this, like Laurie
Blakeman, were thanked. And when the vote took place, when it was finished and
over, I texted my daughter and said “you won”.

And so she did, but not just her. She and all the kids in
this province won, securing the right to form a group not much different from
the chess club or yearbook society. They won the right – finally, as she said
last night as she made me dinner – to form GSAs without being denied by the
adults for whom such groups did not matter and were not intended, making it so
easy for them to say no. It wasn’t the lives of adults on the line, but lives
of young adults, and yesterday the young adults to whom these groups really
matter won the right to have them, as it should have been all along.

That it happened yesterday is perhaps why I was more tearful
and emotional than I might have normally been. Yesterday was the fifth
anniversary of my mother’s death, a day I will never forget as I held her hand
as she left this world and slipped away from me forever. My mother was a
remarkable woman, someone with a depth of love and compassion rarely seen in
this world, and to be like her in that regard has perhaps always been my
greatest goal. To be the kind of mother she was, the kind who supported their
child regardless of the magnitude of the challenge, the kind who loved fully
and unconditionally and without reserve, was always something I wished to
achieve.

I don’t know if I have achieved it yet, but yesterday as I
remembered my mother I held close to me the day my daughter came to me and
said: “do something”, and that “something” became a journey that finished with
my daughter going to bed in a province slightly different than the one she had
woken up in that morning - and knowing that she and I had been part of making it
happen. I am grateful to a lot of people today – every person in this province
who lent their voice to this cause, every politician who pushed for it openly and
behind closed doors, every youth who shared their stories
with our government to show them why it mattered – but I am mostly grateful to
the IJB, because she was the one who led me on this journey.

Yesterday the IJB was late getting home after school. She
was in a meeting, the kind of meeting every student in this province will soon
have the right to attend. And I have never been so happy to be impatiently waiting for her
to come home.

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